MARCH 31ST 2013. EASTER SUNDAY

Gospel: John 20:1-9

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

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Easter is not simply a beautiful historical event in which Jesus overcomes the barrier of death. Don Fabio encourages us to consider Easter also as a relational thing. In everything that we do we must live Easter. We must go beyond the here and now and follow Jesus towards the Father. Easter is a call to action, a call to follow Jesus beyond the absurdities and preoccupations of this life and to focus our existence on heavenly things. It is a call to leave behind the things that belong to the phase of death, a call to stop making absolutes out of ourselves and the things that we possess. In every moment of our lives we must undergo the growth and evolution towards the Father that is Easter.

Easter is about transition, passage, development 

We are celebrating Easter, which is at the heart of our faith.. There are many things important for the faith hidden in this enigmatic passage from St John's Gospel. The stone has been rolled back from the tomb and the question is raised: "They have taken the Lord away, and we don't know where they have put him". The word "paschal" refers to a passage or transition. When the Apostles are confronted by the enigma of the empty tomb, they are themselves being prompted to undergo a passage or transition. In fact they run to the tomb, led by Peter, and they find that Jesus is no longer there. What is happening in this passage? The disciples are doing what Jesus called them to do: they are following him. Easter is a movement, a going beyond. We are confronted here with the greatest of all obstacles - death. We have arrived at the final destination, and this final destination has become a point of departure. Easter is not simply about receiving the news that Jesus has overcome death. Easter is about following Jesus so that we too go beyond death. 

Easter involves leaving something behind and moving on to something new

Peter and John stand in the empty tomb and they see the cloths used for the burial of Jesus. These cloths belong to the phase of death that Jesus went through and they remain here. They have not been taken with him because they do not belong where Jesus is now. To go through Easter signifies to leave something behind. It signifies to follow Jesus and to go towards the Father. When Jesus called the disciples originally he asked them to come and follow him. They said that they wanted to know where he lived and he replied, "Come and see". The call of Jesus is always a dynamic call. It always involves action like coming and seeing. The disciples run to the tomb to see where Jesus has gone. They see and they believe, but then they are driven to go elsewhere. Easter  launches all of us towards that which happens in the aftermath of the Paschal events, always in the company of the Lord. Easter makes us look upon death, the tomb, putrefaction, as stages of a journey, as places from which we go beyond. Easter does not simply reveal beautiful news about the future: that in the death of Jesus our deaths will be overcome, that the impregnable wall of the void has been broken down by Jesus. Easter does more than this. It proclaims that the essence of the Christian life is a state of movement. 

Easter is not a historical event to be noted; it is a way of life, a relationship, a journey with Jesus to the Father

We must live Easter in everything that we do. Every event of our lives must become a passage towards the Father. Jesus did not come out of the tomb simply to come out of the tomb; he came out so that he could go towards the Father. Later Jesus asks Mary Magdalen not to cling to him. He asks that their relationship not remain as it is in that moment. "I must go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God".  We too, in everything we do, must follow Jesus on the road to the Father. In every situation we must undergo this moment of growth and evolution that is Easter. We must go beyond death, beyond injustice, beyond the absurdities of life. In all of these situations there is a stone that must be rolled back. God will look after the business of moving the stone. We are not capable in ourselves of following Jesus. It is Jesus who makes us capable. Easter is not something to be comprehended with our rational faculties alone. It is not that we contemplate on Easter and then decide that we have understood it completely. Easter is a relational thing. It is an act of following Jesus towards the Father. Human existence is essentially a journey from the self towards God. Life becomes terrible and horrible when it is lived in a solitude without God, when we do not live the Paschal mystery of passage towards the Father, when we do not allow the Lord to throw the doors open, when we are left with no apparent way out. 

When we live Easter, we are freed from the tendency to make absolutes out of ourselves and the things that we possess

Easter has a fundamental eschatological note; it is concerned with that which is beyond this world. We cannot comprehend the resurrection unless we are freed from the tendency to make absolute the things that we are and that we possess. We are not made for this world. Jesus is risen and has gone beyond. When he came out from the tomb he didn't stay among us saying, "Look how I overcame that little obstacle there". We too must go beyond this world. Easter is a process of transformation of everything into that which is heavenly. In the Our Father we say, "on earth as it is in heaven". Heaven is descending on earth because we are in a process of entering heaven. Our condition is one of making a leap into a dimension that is beyond temporal things. From our childhood we enter into a mode of existence in which our primary concern is to find contentment in this life. Even when we pray, we ask that events unfold so that we can continue to be contented in this life. It is true that faith can bring contentment to our lives here and now, but this is only a collateral effect. Faith makes us contented here and now because we are no longer here. We achieve a detachment from everyday things and find our point of reference in things that are beyond. The Easter passage has been made to that which is greater. It often happens that we meet seriously ill people who are evidently living the resurrection, and then we come across healthy people living in death. These latter people are bogged down in the here and now, they do not live Easter, and they do not follow anyone except themselves.